


The Land of Mines and Monsters

by fireflystorm



Category: Homestuck, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Feel free to make suggestions!, Future dubious consent, Humanstuck, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 01:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflystorm/pseuds/fireflystorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Land of Mines, the villages have no names. People describe where they live as this village over here, by the lake, or in the forest. They live their lives peacefully, mostly, farming their sustenance and doing their best to avoid monster raids. They live the only ways they can. But occasionally they talk of leaving, and the greatness of those who do – they leave and come back with trophies of gems and gunpowder, they come back with glowing stone and enough tales to sustain generations of children at bedtime.<br/>Dave is not an exception to such talk. The boredom and monotony of village life wasn't something he was made for. He was made to leave this place, to be a hero people talk about reverently, a legend. He was made to be an adventurer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Land of Mines and Monsters

            In the Land of Mines, the villages don’t have names. One is from this village over here, by the river, or one part of a desert temple system. One could say things are simpler, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The Land evolved over time; a place once marked by peace and simplicity became marred and trampled by monster rampage and invasion.

            None of that particularly bothered the villagers, though. Most had not been around long enough to claim they knew anything different than devastation, a half-nomadic lifestyle, and the difficulties of manual things.

            Dave was no different. Neither he nor his older brother knew anything aside from the desert village they had grown up in. They knew the monsters, the dark and light, and not much more. Of course, one such as Dave, a boy like him – he had felt the longing to leave more than just a passing itch. It swelled in him day by day, and as the murmurs spread about people who left for grand adventures. Some seen again, some not.

            The boy laid on his bed in the heat of the summer, staring at the wooden ceiling. The house he and his brother shared was small; two rooms. The bedroom, in which he was currently lying, and the main room, which was a multi-function kitchen-slash-sitting-room-slash-wrestling-ring. The architecture was kind of shitty but then again, his brother’s talents didn’t really lie in design building. And at any rate, he probably couldn’t have done better.

            “Hey, kid, get off your ass,” Dave heard his brother shout from where he sat at the table. “We need some water from the springs.”

            The boy rolled from the bed and grabbed his shades in one fluid motion, bare feet hitting the wool rug which covered the smooth, hot sandstone floor. He brought up his inventory interface, which had gained, for whatever reason, the nickname sylladex. He donned his leather boots from his nine-space primary capacity and headed over to his chest, which sat at the foot of his bed.

            “Fuckin’ chores,” he mumbled. He figured, honestly, that Bro didn’t even really need any water, and especially not from the springs – after all, there was a well in town – but it was probably just an excuse to get Dave out of the house for a bit. Honestly, it was all for the best, since otherwise he’d probably rot inside out laying on the bed, too lazy to move and with no freedom to go farther than the farms surrounding the village, excepting the occasional venture out to the springs.

            He opened the chest interface and selected his backpack, which materialized easily in his hands. He strapped it on, taking a moment to pull the empty bucket from it and place it in his primary sylladex.

            “A’ight, be back in a few,” he said to his brother as he opened the door.

            The sunlight assailed him, bright and blinding, as he stepped out, even despite his sunglasses. He put one hand flush with his brow to shield himself from the glare, glancing up at the square sun before gauging the village’s daily ventures. Dave walked down the path, only marked by the slight distinction between sand and smooth sandstone, noting that the progress on building three new houses was almost complete. A man on a ladder was installing torches on black wool for a lantern to keep this new addition to the village well-lit and safe.

            “Will you hand me that, kid?” He asked as Dave started to pass, motioning vaguely towards a dropped torch. He tossed it up to him and kept walking, past the half-built sandstone houses, towards a cactus with a yellow flower atop it which marked the way to the spring.

            “Hey!” A voice called from nearby. The boy turned toward the sound of feet hitting sand, to see a tanned girl in shorts, with long hair tied up in a ponytail for the sake of not succombing to the heat. She wore a bright smile, accentuated by brighter red lips. “Dave! Headed on an _adventure_?”

            “Adventure my ass,” he answered, slightly shrugging his shoulders and feeling aware suddenly of the subtle smile playing on his lips. “Hey, Aradia. I’m headed to the spring. Wanna come with?”

            “Ab-so-lutely!” She answered as she reached where he was standing, elbowing him. “I’m always up for getting out of the house.”

            He started down the path again,  at a bit of a faster pace to keep up with his companion’s perpetual pep for adventures. “Yeah, well, you’re allowed to go past the farms, so don’t even get me started on wanting to leave the house.”

            She frowned momentarily at that as she did a running jump to get over a semi-steep sand hill, narrowly avoiding a cactus. Dave followed with slightly less ease, less used to exploring than she was. “Well,” she started as she brushed herself off and offered him a hand, which he refused. “You know Bro’s just trying to protect his baby brother.”

            “I’m not a baby anymore,” Dave argued. “I’m seventeen and I ought to be allowed to go wherever the hell I want.”

            “So, why don’t you?”

            He looked at her suddenly. Her eyes were brown and squinted a little in the harsh desert light, and she wore a smile that could possibly be interpreted as mischevous. But Dave, like all who knew her, understood that she was as genuine as a little kid, honest and a little innocent in most regards despite being a year older than himself.

            “Why don’t I?” He repeated to himself as he half-slid down to the oasis where Bro sent him to get water, Aradia following closely behind. She sat at the water’s edge, looking intently at him. “Because I… you know what, that’s a damn good question.”

            He pulled the bucket from his sylladex and filled it with the cool, clear water, then loaded it back into the primary list. Aradia looked like she’d suddenly had a good idea and grinned wide, dimples noticeable in her cheeks. “I’ve got a present for you!” She pulled off her own knapsack and brought up the inventory list – half full of random artifacts, unsurprisingly.

            From there, she pulled forth a wooden axe and held it out for Dave, still beaming. He stared at it momentarily in undiscernable shock; wood was rare out in the desert and anyway, Aradia shouldn’t have any. And even despite that, she was offering him an axe – axe would mean wood, wood would mean pickaxe, pickaxe meant more materials, his own house, his own life. His own…

            “Adventure,” Aradia said, as though completing his thought. “It’d be a crime to keep this if you don’t have one. And anyway,” she paused, looking back toward the village’s image which wobbled and seared in the heat, “I wouldn’t mind running away for a while.”

            He still balked at taking it for a moment, and then, suddenly and with a wave of confidence, wrapped his hand around the handle and took it from her, smiling unabashedly. “Damn it, Aradia, I could kiss you but kissing the gravedigger’s daughter might damage my sterling reputation.” She laughed brightly in response, using the back of her hand to wipe her face. “Why are we still standing here? Let’s get on the road, already. The world is ready for someone as chill as me, especially in the middle of all this fucking heat.”

            “Um, Dave,” Aradia cut in, motioning back to the village, “you might wanna go home and get some food first. I’ll be waiting outside the farms, just a few feet behind the sugarcane.”

            She started off towards the farms before he could say anything in response, and he started up the hill back towards the village. The sun beat down on him so hot that he was pretty damn sure he could actually _feel_ himself tanning, but it didn’t bother him suddenly. He was going to be leaving. He was going to get out from under his brother’s wing and go far away, find and do something better than laying around in a village waiting for the day that he was accidentally caught outside at night when the monsters came.

            Dave slipped back into his house, noting his lack of brother. He looked around momentarily, then headed into the bedroom, only to find there was no sign of him, meaning that he had slipped out, likely to visit some lover or find monsters to strife. He headed over to his chest, bringing up the item inventory. He stared at the grid for a moment, pulling out some rations: a couple of raw beef patties, two loaves of bred, three potatoes and two pieces of coal. He loaded all of these into his backpack.

            After a moment’s deliberation and dismissal of all guilt, he went over to his brother’s trapped chest, and, having fell for that far too many times, hit the pressure-sensitive stone nearby, then headed for the real chest which fell atop his brother’s bed. He brought up the inventory, looking through the items; weaponry, armor, miscellaneous puppets. His brother’s precious stash.

            Without a second thought he took the low-level wooden sword from the bottom of the inventory, not that his brother used wooden tools ever. He thought for a moment, then also took out a stray piece of paper, writing on it with pencil.

            _bro – gone w aradia. dont wait up. took sword._

            He added the last admission more or less solely for the fact that normally that would get his ass kicked but this time he wouldn’t be around for strifing. With an abnormal confidence, he placed the paper on top of the chest, licking his thumb and pressing it to the corner of the paper to tack it there for an hour or two.

            Dave took one last inventory of the things in his backpack and sylladex, then looked around the house. He looked at the familiar, warm sandstone floors and walls, with the mismatched wooden roof and skylight; all as though he had never seen them before. Then he inhaled, took a breath, and stepped out the door, and then out of the village.

            He and Aradia ran, sweaty hands held tight, until they couldn’t even see the village any more.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if any of this is confusing. Basically, this is a human AU wherein the Homestuck characters live in the Minecraft world and have never really known anything else. They all have different opinions on these things, though, of course. A lot of this integrates Homestuck technology into Minecraft, as well as uses interpretations of how I think things work in the Minecraft world for players.  
> Feel free to leave me suggestions for pairings, scenes or anything! Please! Your input is greatly appreciated (and I really suck at completing stuff, so inspiration is always, always appreciated).


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